About: Isa

Name:Isa
2007-11-15 00:00:09
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Posts by Isa:

The Film Thread

Hi everyone!

I thought, as we have a music thread that we should have a film thread also. I thought that perhaps we could put down TCK films or just films that we have enjoyed and perhaps add some quotes as well?

I’ll start: I just saw The Kite Runner. It is a film of two boys Amir and Hassan in Afghanistan prior to the Russian invasion of the 70s. Hassan is the son of the servants and a Hazara. The two grow up like brothers until Amir and his father flee to America.

Years later, he hears that Hassan is dead and thatHassan has asked him to go and collect his son from Afghanistan and to keep him safe.

Several points that i found interesting were:

“I feel like a tourist in my own country.” To which his driver replies; “You always were, you just never realised it then.”

I liked how the film makers have done that — someone who is not bi-lingual or has never lived in a country where the language spoken there is not their native one does not understand the consequences of language loss or acquisition of their children.

December 15, 2007 | Filed Under General Forum | 25 Comments 

Can we really fully *know* the cultures we have lived in?

Hey y’all

Well, i was reading through the FB thread and someone asked if we really truly knew the cultures that we have lived in.  I must admit that that has come to me many times during my life. Because for me, France is stuck at the time when i was 15. And Mauritius from when i was 13. The US.. changes for me, the last time i was there was when i was 14. And Australia… changes with me as i am living hjere now but i know that when i leave i shall remember it from the age that i left it (hopefully i shall be 21!).

I do not beleive that anyone can fully know a culture inside and out because culture changes. I can never truly know Aussie culture because there are still references that people make of their early schooling days that i don’t understand.

For example, abt 3 yrs ago i did not know something apparently well known in Aussie culture (the akubra hat). [http://www.walkabout.com/images/i/hat-ak-snowy-st.jpg]

I had seen some men around wearing them but i didn’t know that in the bush some people bought the hats with pieces of cork hanging off them (to keep the flies away). And i when i was told this i was all “Really?!” And the person saying this to me was all”What? You don’t know your own culture!”.

I had thought that i didn’t need to know aymore as i had been living here for then abt 8 years.

Anyone got any ideas? Comments? Stories?

December 8, 2007 | Filed Under General Forum | 16 Comments 

The TCK Song Thread

Hi y’all,

I was listening to a song by French singer Gerald de Palmas who is a TCK himself. And i was wonbderinbg what other music makes you think of TCKs and/or any music by a TCK that has helped you?

Here is info about him from wiki:

Gérald De Palmas (born Gérald Gardrinier, on October 14, 1967 in Saint-Denis, Réunion) is a French singer. His father was a land surveyor from France and his mother was a French teacher from Réunion.

At the age of 10, De Palmas’ family left Réunion, to live in Aix-en-Provence, France. At the age of 13, he discovered ska music, and became a fan of the UK band The Specials.

His newest album Un homme sans racines (A man without roots)  was released in 2004.

The song i was listening to: I will try to translate it — but i shall make mistakes so beware it is not perfect! It’s late and i’m not perfect :-P

Un homme sans racines

Plus je prends de l’âge plus j’oublie
Là où je suis né
Peu à peu mon cœur a enfoui ce qui fait mon passé
Difficile de vivre le présent sans avant sans après
Alors j’avance au hasard d’un pas mal assuré

 

[The more i age the more i forget

the place where i was born

Little by little my heart  has hidden what makes up my past

It is hard to live in the present without a before and after

So i advance by chance with a hesitant step (bad steps taken?)

 

Je suis un homme sans racines
Au moindre vent je m’incline
Juste un homme sans racines
Je pense à demain et j’imagine

 

[I am just a man without roots

with the least wind i incline myself  (at the slightest sign of trouble i back down?)

Just a man without roots

I think of tomorrow and i imagine]

 

Parfois des visages me reviennent
mais je préfère tirer un trait
Sur ce mélange de bons souvenirs
mais aussi de mauvais
J’aimerais trouver un endroit où me recueillir
Un endroit où puiser la force, la force de m’affranchir

[Sometimes faces return to me

but i prefer to focus upon

the mixture of good memories and bad ones

I would like to find a place

where i find the force, the force to release me (free me?)]

 

Je suis un homme sans racines
Au moindre vent je m’incline
Juste un homme sans racines
Je pense à demain et j’imagine

Au moment opportun
Je tuerai mes démons un par un
Fort et serein je ne serai plus…

[At a convenient moment

i shall kill my demons one by one

strong and serene i shall not be anymore]

Je suis un homme sans racines
Au moindre vent je m’incline
Juste un homme sans racines
Je pense à demain et j’imagine…

 

—-

 

Look Brice! He’s from Reunion! Plus he’s a Frenchie! *gasp!*  So, how did i go with the translation?

December 8, 2007 | Filed Under General Forum | 25 Comments 

Different living standards

Hi everyone! I’m Isa.

Anyways, i was wondering if anyone had any reactions thoughts on the different standards of living in different parts of the world?

What made me think of this was the other night, i was out with some friends and one - we shall call her S. said “I’d like to do the Taikiki tour.” I did not know what that was and so i asked her (i thought it was something to do with Hawaii.) what it was and she said it was a European tour that you go on to see the major landmarks (or whatever) throughout Europe with about 20 other Australians.

I scoffed and said “Why would i want to go on a European tour WITH 20 other Aussies? I go to Europe to meet other Europeans (broad, i know and i cringed when i used the term) not to stay with other Australians. I go to Europe to escape. ” I apologised for being perhaps too harsh, adding that i had been in this country for too long and needed to leave.

To which S. said that If/when i left i would find the move hard because the “standard of living in other places isn’t as high. That Australia is cheaper, that eating out is cheaper…etc.”

All i know right now is that i need to move to a place with good public transport and weather.  One is a necessity, the other a choice.

I am scared about moving. I went overseas for the first time by myself on exchange to France when i was 15 for 3 months. I stayed with a family .. we did not  get along.

I was mixed up about a lot of things at the time, but especially how i was supposed to represent a country that i didn’t feel a part of.

I came back… thinking that it was a failure in some ways, but not in others. It was a maturing experience and i would not erase it. I was mixed up because i had considered myself at least partly-French (well, Mauritian but hey) and so expected the transition to be relatively smooth. It wasn’t.

With regards to Australia,  as (i think Warona said?) passport countries are for visiting and nostalgia but not to be lived in. I understand the ‘pull’ there is to live here, the laid-back-ness, the weather… but i have never been truly happy here. I have never truly belonged and so i know that when i leave, i shall feel the ‘pull’ to come back (due to friends and family) but that the leave will be a  permanent one. I know that i cannot be happy here.

What i don’t know is the place that is ‘home’ - where i can be happy.

Does anyone understand?

December 3, 2007 | Filed Under General Forum | 12 Comments 

The Return

Bright lights. Noise. With that, the girl is brought to a rude awakening. She opens her eyes and realises that she cannot see – she is not wearing her glasses. Shapes are blurry around her – the seat, matt of dark blue. She begins to search frantically. They could not have gone far she had been sitting on a seat on an aeroplane forever! She lets out a terrified cry – she hates not being able to see. The reaches, trying to reach her father – but it is her mother who responds.
“I can’t find my glasses.” And suddenly, there are tears on her cheeks, though the girl only feels heat.
“Arêtte de pleurer.” Her mother says immediately, picking up the glasses from the floor where they had fallen earlier.
“How long until we get off?”
“Another 10 hours. So go to sleep.” The girl is given her Peter Rabbit plushie. He was a going-away present from her friend, Huck. He was a little worn, a little weary when she got him, but she loves him the most.
She sits and thinks of home…

*

Later, when asked ‘what does you remember most about America?’. She will not know what to say. Should she say that she spent her whole life trying to live up to a ‘Dream’ and an identity that was never hers to own in the first place? That she has always felt she has never belonged anywhere? She was never truly ‘American’ because she was a French-speaking Australian ex-pat. That in Australia, she could never fit in because she did not know the language, the customs?
She remembers some things of America – a private lycee where she spoke French all the time as well as at home, and had to wear a uniform. She remembers her home, with her neighbour, Gilbert who owned 2 Golden Retrievers who she learnt to love at an early age. Most of all, she remembers Vivianne – her Mauritian nanny/mother. She remembers the hours of fun and games, and especially whose bed she would crawl into after a nightmare. The over riding feeling though, is the utter fury and hurt caused when Vivianne did not come with them to Australia.

*
Australia. The land of the kangaroo. Her father’s land. She felt no connection to it. But perhaps she would, in time.

November 14, 2007 | Filed Under Stories | 3 Comments 

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